Toddler Death Shines Light on China’s One-Child Enforcers

The death this week of a Chinese toddler has shined the spotlight once again on China’s family planning enforcers, who have been increasingly under a microscope for the sometimes brutal ways they implement the country’s one-child policy.

The 13-month-old boy was allegedly crushed under the wheels of a government minivan following an argument between his parents and local officials. State media said on Wednesday that a Communist Party official surnamed Bai and a driver surnamed Cheng had been detained in connection with the death of the child in the city of Rui’an, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.

The boy was killed around noon on Monday after 11 officials from the Rui’an township of Mayu confronted his parents, Chen Liandi and Li Yuhong, over their violation of the country’s family planning policies, according to state media. Officials were trying to get Mr. Chen to pay fines for the child, the couple’s third, the official Xinhua news agency said in a report on Wednesday (in Chinese).

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Mr. Chen told Xinhua the officials had loaded his wife into a minivan then shoved him when he tried to get on with her, causing him to drop his son. At that moment, the minivan suddenly moved, crushing the child before his father could pull him out of the way.

“When the van began to move, they hadn’t even shut the door,” Mr. Chen told Xinhua. “They were so anxious to grab my wife and go.”

Initial reports on the child’s death were short on detail, leaving considerable room for speculation. Chinese social media users were quick to assume the worst, with some calling for the officials to be charged with murder. The calls continued even after subsequent reports seemed to suggest the death was an accident.

“Evil family planning! An inhuman crime! History will issue its judgment!” wrote one incensed user of Sina Corp.’s Weibo microblogging service.

“The family planning office is highly suspicious,” wrote another.

The Rui’an family planning office declined to comment, referring questions to the city’s propaganda office. A propaganda official declined to comment, saying the incident was still being investigated. He said he expected results of the investigation could be released as soon as Thursday.

The online outrage so far has failed to match the outpouring of anger unleashed in China last June after images circulated online showing a 23-year-old woman lying on a hospital bed next the seven month-old fetus she had been forced to abort. Still, the eagerness of microbloggers to see the officials as having caused the death of the child reflects rising public frustration with the country’s one-child system and those who enforce it.

Economists and demographers have been pushing hard in recent months for China to scrap the one-child policy, arguing that the country’s shrinking labor force needs desperately to be replenished. Popular opposition to the family planning regime, meanwhile, has been driven largely by anger over rights violations and the aggressive tactics used by some family planning offices in enforcing the rules.

That anger was evident online, even among social media users who didn’t assume the officials intentionally tried to kill the child.

“What reason could they have for insisting on collecting the fee right before the new year?” asked a Tianjin-based bank employee, referring to the Chinese New Year holiday, which beings on Saturday. “The country urgently needs to clear out these low-quality insects from the ranks of public servants.”

Others wondered why family planning officials didn’t go after the country’s elite, many of whom have more than one child.

“The entire nation would support family planning office investigations into the birth violations of high officials and major capitalists. Do they dare?” wrote one Sina Weibo user.

Xinhua quoted the boy’s father as saying authorities had demanded the parents pay 30,000 to 40,000 yuan ($4,800-$6,400) or risk being detained.

Thousands of angry people gathered outside the township government offices after news of the death spread on Monday, Xinhua said, citing witnesses.

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